Automatic system for determining cabling and configuration problems from digital photographs

Publishing Venue

IBM

Abstract

A method of determining cabling configuration errors using digital photography

Automatic system for determining cabling and configuration problems from digital photographs

Many systems contain many components that require cabling. Any problems with this cabling and the system does not function. These systems can have many cables in them, and determining which cable is causing the problem can be very time consuming, assuming that it isn't obvious what is wrong.

  Known methods of determining that configurations are correct are usually manual, or rely on warning indicators.

Manual methods are time consuming, while using indicators relies on having configuration problems detectable by the existing systems and an indicator present.

  By taking a set of digital photographs of the cabling inside a storage system, for instance, and applying simple image processing to that image the cabling arrangement can be determined. This can then be checked to see if it is valid or not. If it isn't then the error can be indicated, for instance on the photograph or as a textual report.

  This method is quick and automatic, and doesn't rely on any extra hardware in the system being examined.

  The determination of the cabling in a networking system, for instance, would be as follows:
1. Take a set of photographs of the system, from standard positions, i.e. views from front and rear of each cabinet.
2. For each photograph, identify the rack position.
3. The positions of the connectors on the racks can then be found, as the layout of the racks is standard.
4. The existing cab...